The Pregnant Pause:Our TTC Journey

Let me start this by saying to all of you women who have dealt with morning sickness or Hypermesis Gravidarum, I applaud you for making it through it. Holy cow. When I was pregnant with Reilly, I did have some on and off nausea but mostly I suffered for debilitating migraines. I always said I'd rather deal with nausea than migraines. That still might be true though I'm not too sure now. Yesterday, I hit 6 weeks of pregnancy and celebrated with a bang. I invited my toilet, a trash can, and all the food I'd eaten at the Super Bowl party the night before and we just had a blast. Yes... For the first time, I threw up while being pregnant... Not only did I do it once... No, I did it FIVE times. All within a span of 2.5 hours. I was completely worthless the rest of the day. I was so nauseous and weak that I couldn't do anything. I was literally confined to the couch all day. At the advice of some of my friends who've dealt with bad morning sickness in the past, I swallowe...

There comes a time in your life where you go to bed at 7:30PM every night... That's me... At the ripe old age of 27. I have never been so tired in my entire life. That includes my pregnancy with my son and the two miscarriages last year. For those of you that don't know me, I'm a pretty energetic person so to barely make it out of bed every day after 10+ hours of sleep is such a strange thing. I've also been blessed with early morning sickness and heartburn. I didn't get morning sickness with Reilly until probably 7 weeks. I didn't get heartburn until closer to my second trimester. To be getting both of these things before I'm even 6 weeks is blowing my mind. I sometimes have a feeling I'm carrying twins but I'm probably crazy. I keep getting that inkling though... Maybe it's wishful thinking. I've always wanted twins. I was a twin and never got to experience that twin bond because my twin was miscarried. I've always wanted to see that bo...

It's been awhile since I posted on here but today I felt the urge to write. I started an email for my almost-two year old son a few weeks before his first birthday. I was reading through the emails I sent him and came across two emails telling him he was going to be a big brother and two emails telling him we'd lost both babies. It's a weird feeling going back to those moments. They feel so long ago even though they really weren't. We were lucky to find out we were pregnant again last week on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. As weird as it sounds, it is perfect. We found out on a day that was dedicated to a man who had a dream. Granted, his dream was a little different than mine but the sentiment is the same. We are also due the month of Infant and Pregnancy Loss Awareness which is pretty special. What is strange is you'd think I'd be terrified! While I am scared I've also realized that stressing over everything isn't going to help anything. I'm just goin...

It has been a long time since I have posted and there is definitely a reason for it which I'll get to momentarily. After my chemical pregnancy, I had people reach out to me and tell me thank you for raising awareness. It is often overlooked even in the medical industry. I now know there is a reason God put me through that. I was able to help people and talk to people about it. I was a source of hope for people and that's a pretty cool thing. I even had a close friend who just experienced one herself. So, it's much more common than people think. After I found out about my chemical pregnancy, it made me wonder how many I might have had myself before the one I caught. I know my chemical was caused by low progesterone. So, how many cycles did I actually unknowingly experience a chemical pregnancy? I'll never know and that's probably better. Immediately after the grief of my chemical pregnancy started to wear off, I knew this month we would be successful. I, again, j...

Hey everyone! I'm wanting to discuss how your cycles can be affected by a chemical pregnancy. Considering, I have first hand experience with this now I think it might help others who are currently or have recently experienced a chemical pregnancy. Even though chemical pregnancies are miscarriages before 5 weeks (mine was 4 weeks, 1 day) they can still impact the following cycle in different ways. Some women find they take a long time to ovulate afterwards. Some find they ovulate very quickly afterwards and much earlier than usual. That was the case for me. I had read some advice to start OPKs right after my period ended because my hormones could be all out of whack. My period was longer and heavier than normal with a ton of clots. I was finally period free on CD8 and that is when I started OPKs. It was crazy for me to already see a fairly dark line. Granted, it was still negative but I knew that a positive OPK was only days away. On CD10, I had a really dark line on the OPK but...

Well, I'm uttering the words I never thought I'd say. We have just experienced a chemical pregnancy. It sucks. This is how it all went down. We were in Colorado for our two year wedding anniversary and had the most amazing time. Towards the end of our trip I started feeling off. I'd get nauseous and headaches, insane hot flashes, I was drinking water like I was in the desert... Not to mention I ate part of a hard boiled egg in my salad at dinner one night and about died. Anyway,that night we had actually went to see a psychic. Yes, I'm sure some of you just rolled your eyes. It was for fun and I was taking everything she said with a grain of salt. I kid you not though... The first thing she said to me when we walked in was, "Are you pregnant?!" I replied with, "Not that I know of!" She then said that I'd be pregnant this year. She could see that. Well, two days later I was home and decided to take a pregnancy test. I was prescribed 100mg of pro...

Hi everyone! So, we got all of our test results back... Everything looks great! I had CD3 bloodwork done testing my Estradiol, Prolactin, and FSH. *Estradiol was 40 (normal is between 25 and 75) *Prolactin was a 6.6 (normal is under 25) *FSH was 6.8 (great numbers are under 9) DH got his semen analysis results back as well! *Sperm Count was 35.92 million (normal is between 12 and 20 million) *Motility Pre-Wash was 64% (normal over 40%) *Morphology 4% (normal is 5% and under...still not sure how to understand the morphology results but if it's normal, what do I care?) So, overall everything is great with us! I'm scheduled to do an HSG next month just to make sure my fallopian tubes aren't blocked. I don't think there's an issue with them but I guess we'll find out next month! I've also just started a Youtube channel to document my TTC journey as well! Please, feel free to follow along! I'm finishing up the edits on my first video and I...

Today is CD 1 of my 8th TTC cycle. Bummer, right? I'm going to be blatantly honest here. TTC sucks. I never thought it would be this hard. It's not just the emotional aspect failing over and over again. It's the constant advice you get from people who think they're giving you brand new never before heard of advice. Well guess what... I've heard it all. Here are the most common pieces of advice you get: *Just relax. *You're trying to hard. *You're stressing out too much. *It'll happen when the time is right. *Try OPKs. *Have sex on CDX, CDX, and CDX. *Have sex every other day/have sex every day. *Just have fun! *Stop taking it so seriously. I am so sick and tired of hearing these pieces of advice over and over. Every time I hear one, I just smile and thank the person because they honestly think they're helping and I appreciate that. If you've ever been through TTC and it's been difficult you know what I'm talking about. It'...

The journey one goes on when trying to conceive is a difficult one. I've studied all the books, charted like a mad woman for a year prior, and BD'd every time we were supposed to in order to get pregnant. Well, on my first cycle of TTC we failed. We did everything right but we didn't get pregnant. For those who have embarked on this journey, you know that your body plays many tricks on you when it comes to getting symptoms and such. I had my first ever triphasic chart not to mention a sore throat and low grade fever, both of which can be pregnancy symptoms (or as a normal person would call it.. just a sore throat and low grade fever). Well, I ended up being three days late when AF finally came. I had very regular cycles, so when I was late I let myself believe I was pregnant. It was just too early for a positive pregnancy test. December 23rd, my temperature dropped, along with my heart. When my temperature drops that normally means AF will be visiting me that day, startin...